Help! Help!

Endryn

Hrm, looked at 5 months worth of logs, Cyrene guards always hit in the same prompt when ashtan/eleusis/targ/hashani guards do not.

*edit: They also attacked the same target when the other guards didn't.

Thaisen

they are highly trained

Adrik

Highly trained..

OR THE ADMINS ARE IN CYRENE'S FAVOR!?!

Caelan

These forums lately make it clear the opposite is true. Clearly it is some devious trick to get Cyrene nerfed by the Admin/Gods.

I don't mind CFH. I think I've used it a handful of times. It is good for an understaffed city, and helps in large raid groups. It helps convey the 'we don't want to play right now' as well - which is why some cities jumping right on moving guards (to me, at least) comes across hypocritical and downright laughable. However the IG justification holds that if you have them, they get 'paid' to protect from raiders and enemies.

Maux

Okay first off. @Caelan if you guys don't want to play don't log into a game.. you know that thing people PLAY.

On CFH, it's ridiculous. I get that people want to feel safe in a city, and to a degree you should be. However guards are pretty much mobile bulldozers that run through raid parties like a hot knife through butter. I can't tell you how many times over the years I've seen over deathsight whole ass raid parties decimated by guard stacks. Or been in a raid party that sat there while the defending city had the numbers, but opted to CFH. I'm of the mindset if you don't want to defend, don't join a city or don't engage, and if you don't want to play.. well don't log in? Alt out? You don't even have to defend while logged in, but sending an army of NPC warriors is kinda meh.

The idea guards shouldn't die? That's the dumbest idea i've heard. Guards are wickedly strong, stun, knock down flyers, entangle, no.. they absolutely should be killable. I personally don't think they should be near as strong as they are given the high numbers they can accumulate in.

Cities are TOO safe as it is. Marked targets can simply run to one and hole up, it's kind of stupid and for a feature that seems to be so heavily endorsed with having war systems and sanction systems, cities are too well fortified with guards, totems, fonts, and purchasable defences. -Every- city has a huge guard stack + totem at the entrance, limiting who can even initiate an invade to begin with.

Total honesty here, this whole thing where CFH is just this super weapon is why I dislike raiding. I play to play against other players, not a horde of npc.

Sobriquet

I think you might be in a minority there, Maux.

Cities should absolutely be a safe space and if someone wants to sit in their city on guard stacks for 6 days to wait out a bounty, that's on them, their game play and how they want to spend their time. You don't get a 100% chance to jump someone just because you took a bounty. Some players do this, some are happy to go about their day and just watch for being jumped. It's a choice. We also have numerous classes and numerous ways to get in and try to pry them out, so I see these counters as pretty good.

Guards do need to be strong at times because if you have 3 people on and get raided by 10, it doesn't matter who you are, you're going to need backup and guards should be available. Also having a select few bring down flyers is useful and strategic around the city. However, even with these and the large guard stacks you talk about at entrances, people still raid. We see this on a daily basis, with tanks going off all over the place. Eleusis had one in Hashan earlier today.

If you remove guards or weaken them that much, you'll just move all the hangout spots to Ships and dilute the experience even more (I still dislike ships and everything they've introduced, but that's just my opinion and understand I'm in a minority there too).

I personally think guards are fine as they are with strength and abilities. The problem arises when a city gets raided, numbers or ability is pretty even, and they are a go-to first strat. However, I think that's down to players and I can't think of an easy way to code around that.

Caelan

@Sobriquet you should only log in if you run it by Maux and see what he wants to do that day and you are okay with that.

Ambrus

On the subject of guards -

I wonder how it would work out if guards can't be moved if the number of foreign city "army" within the defender's walls is within a certain threshold of defending city "army" currently online. Guards would, of course, still be hostile no matter what and just as strong, just couldn't be a main go-to tool. Something along the lines of the guards responding "There are enough martial forces in the city to repel the invasion, the threat isn't dire enough for us to leave our posts."

This could be a cool way to potentially reward raiding cities with near equivalent numbers while making raiding groups not feel like they're being trounced because "lol they called guards".

Shirszae

As has been stated ad nauseum in many many threads, numbers mean very little when it comes to raids. Composition of class and arties, experience and ability is what really matters, and there's no way to account for things like that with a script.

Greys

@Shirszae Total retirement value * (1 + (total kills + total deaths) / total deaths)

Saonji

@Shirszae Sure you can, if you give everyone a numerical value.

Taryius

Don't forget to add the meta modifier based on class choice.

Sobriquet

And the 160% Mhaldor bonus

Saonji

--Class values to add to the number.
local class = {
  Alchemist = 1.5, Apostate = 1.2, Bard = 1.8, Blademaster = 1, Depthswalker = 2, Druid = 1, Infernal = 2.5, 
  Jester = 10, Magi = 1, Monk = 1.8, Occultist = 1.5, Paladin = 1, Pariah = -7, Priest = 1.9, Psion = 2, 
  Runewarden = 1.1, Sentinel = 2.2, Serpent = 1, Shaman = 1.5, Sylvan = 1.9,
}

--City coefficient to multiply by, based on how likely they are to add more people to the group.
local city = {
  Ashtan = 0.5, Cyrene = 1, Eleusis = 3, Hashan = 2, Targossas = 2.5,
  Mhaldor = 1,
}

--Baseline value for each person. 'Member' is defined by likelihood of calling more people. Otherwise it's 
--priority to die. People not in the table get assigned the generic 'member' value.
local people = {
  Fieth = 1, Katalyst = 3, Novak = 3, Saonji = -4, AshtanMember = 0.5,
  Keorin = 2, Kog = 3, Nephiny = 4, Pani = 3, CyreneMember = 1,
  Austere = 7, Colgano = 2, Morthif = 7, EleusisMember = 3,
  Amranu = -5, Eryl = 3, Farrah = -6, Mezghar = 3, HashanMember = 2,
  Dalran = 5, Dunn = 7, Mizik = 3, Proficy = 6, MhaldorMember = 1,
  Astarod = 3, Atalkez = -6, Vinzent = 6, TargossasMember = 3,
}

function calculateGroup(members)
  local memberCo, personFrom, personClass, memberValue
  local cityTotal = 0
  for _, person in pairs(members) do
    personFrom = ataxiaNDB.getCitizenship(person).."Member"
    memberCo = personFrom.."Member"
    personClass = ataxiaNDB.getClass(person)

    if people[person] then
      memberValue = people[person] * people[memberCo]
    else
      memberValue = people[memberCo]
    end

    memberValue = memberValue * class[personClass]
    memberValue = memberValue * city[personFrom]
    cityTotal = cityTotal + memberValue  
  end

  return cityTotal
end

I don't know why I wrote this, but once I started I just had to finish.

calculateGroup({"Dalran", "Dunn", "Mizik", "Proficy"}) would return a value of 36.5 (5 + 10.5 + 6 + 15)

calculateGroup({"Amranu", "Elyra", "Eryl", "Farrah"}) would return a value of 46.5 (35 + 2.2 + 20 - 10.8)

Therefore we can surmise that the second group is roughly 28% more favoured to win the fight. Damn Amranu and his double negative values.

Spoiler Warning

Because people are no doubt going to take this seriously, don't. Though it certainly could be used, I guess, if you actually set more serious values. Then you could make wagers to bet. 😯

Shecks

Ashtan and Mhaldor invented the batsignal you lil whippersnapper.

It is true though, Targ does tend to go from 3v10 to 4v10 pretty often but that's mainly just Astarod waking up at 4am because his spidey sense tingled.

Saonji

It's updated to reflect modern values, you god damn boomer.

Greys

@Saonji I was so hoping someone would code something in more detail and pop out values for hypothetical groups. Which language is that?

Just need a modifier for likelihood of extra people being available due to the time of the day, all 4 people in Targossas already being around.

Greys

Great, now I'm thinking of training a neural network to pick out relevant factors to combat and predict wins.

Shecks

If you make money (IG or otherwise) off of it, it's illegal! :P Oh, I guess as long as it doesn't send any commands it's fine.

I think that'd be cool and possible but you'd need an enormous amount of data for it to work, and new players come into the picture faster than you'd be able to pick up data on them.

Cooper

Haha, that calculator is pretty awesome. I bet as a community we could make it pretty accurate over time if we can add more variables (like fighting location, shrines in area, truefavours, staff, old person who used to be good at pk but hasn't played in a long time so they are almost worthless now but their retire value is high).

Proficy

Out of everyone's suggestion on a "hypothetical" scenario and voice of opinion. I cant believe im saying it, but i like Farrah's ideas the best.

Stationing guards adding power to a Tank is brilliant, As well as only allowing a single minister or aide to station a guard at a time would make there use not the -go too- solution every time.

To handle the problem of city layouts that seems to be a common trend. Maybe to settle this, increase value to significant rooms in a city, or make certain rooms have more repercussions. Such as blowing up the warehouse room in a city, renders it useless till the room is restored. Destroying the mail room in the city makes it non deliverable, banks not allowing withdraw/deposit etc etc etc... This will lean the city to defend those areas much more than other areas.

Also, im not sure how possible it is code wise, but maybe add modifiers to tanks for if the tank is CLOSER to guards it progresses a bit faster or gains a slight bit more than usual?

Sobriquet

Room damage stopping things being used is already a thing.

Dominius

I think you should be able to bring along your guards to another city at some cost.

They attack the other guards first if in room with them and players, and are more susceptible to die.

Leaves your city defenseless, but gives you a shot at a gatet city.

Peak

Gonna be honest. This doesn't apply to me really at all and I didn't read much of any of ^

But what do people think about having guards scale like denizens in forays, but scaled to number of enemies in the city?

Greys

@Peak Well to me the primary function of guards is keeping single persons out a bit to make the cities more secure, less so as a counter to raiding. What you suggest would undermine that.

Peak

@Greys that, I believe, assumes that people are generally reasonable.

I suggest it for the sake of leveling the playing field at least a small amount. I wouldn't like to see it scaled to where it's impossible to go on guard bashing runs, just not as simple. Perhaps even weighing it against how many people online in that city are in the military. Having a 15+ person team raid a city with 4 people online in it starts poking at the number one rule of Achaea, "don't be a dick".

Again, I would hope it would still be possible, just only possible with a properly coordinated effort and strategy so a large group can't just "dor assist;;kill" (sorry if I've just given anyone ideas) and obliterate all guards.